A Life Lived
by dimefor12
Summary: Sam knows when it all changed. Summary sucks, sorry! Implied Wincest.


a/n: okay, so this is my first fanfic; it is more like a character sketch, anyway, but please be kind!!

General spoilers for all three seasons; nothing too explicit, but it's there. Hope you enjoy!

A Life Lived

It feels, he thinks, a lot like falling. A lifetime of memories, experiences, fall think behind his eyelids, pulse in time with his too-fast heartbeat. _A lot like falling_, the phrase repeats itself mindlessly, silently and with no discernable voice as calloused fingers slide along his ribcage, slow at his hip and press into the slight dip.

_I can't do this without you._

He thinks this isn't what Dean meant, when Jess was alive, beautiful, and he believed in a normal future. Those words were not portents designed to rip away the carefully constructed life he had made in California, but they are not innocent, either; he doesn't believe anything in their world could ever be. But he can't believe that Dean would ever wish him less than what he wanted for himself. And if that meant miles between him and Dean, Stanford, or two years of isolation, he knows that Dean would gladly do it again. It's the way he is--_the good son, the soldier_, but he is Sam's protector, and even as Sam mocks him for his unerring acquiescence to their dad's orders, he knows that he is no better than their father.

_Selfish bastard. _He knows this. Dean never had to say it, never had to give Sam that reminder, because he _always _knew. It was just his way of life--having Dean; there was no need to think about it, since long before he could choose, his brother had already made that decision to _be _there, to give himself away. And who was Sam to deny that? He had taken what Dean had to give, and gave back when he remembered that some things weren't meant to be one-sided.

The guilt that shimmers beneath those thoughts don't really belong to him anymore. How can he blame himself for the choices that his brother made? They were never his, and now--like then--he refuses to mold his life around another's ideals. So, no, guilt is a fast fading emotion, even in the face of The Deal. After all, between him and Dean they both know that Sam wouldn't've hesitated to do the same.

_You're my weakspot._

He wonders, idly, how they got so fucked up. Yeah, he was Dean's breaking point, and Dean was his. They were brothers, after all. Love, affection--he always expected those things to affect him when dealing with his brother. But, and he only ever wonders about this in his head--never to Dean, who can stomach eviscerations and burnings and beheadings, but not this. Not _this_. But, where did the line just fade away? Sam knows they had had one. He remembers puberty and even before as a time of turning to Dean and getting a manly clap on the shoulder instead of the bear hug he had always been enveloped in as a kid.

It had hurt, that change. He had understood it; Dean was nothing if not a man's man, but Sam hadn't been hampered by that, had no problems with all the things Dean labeled _chick-flick moments _and boxed up and put away. So, that difference had festered until Sam got a scholarship and high-tailed it to Palo Alto and Jess and friends who filled that need and so many more. Still, though, that wasn't why he had skipped out on his family (_my big brother didn't hug me enough)_. It was one change among many. Too many things were changing for him to accept. Maybe, maybe, he likes to think, if his family wasn't morphing into something he couldn't recognize, couldn't relate to, he would've stayed. Hunted. Adopted that sacrificial do-gooder attitude that seemed innate in Dean and carefully fostered in their dad. Maybe.

But it didn't, and he didn't. And when he and Dean hunt it's not the innocent lives that are foremost in his mind. It's revenge, an outlet for his pain and frustration and a way to make his brother smile. Those strangers are a distant second to that. Always will be. And that is familiar, putting Dean above most things, wanting him happy even if Sam fails at that most times. That one day they had fallen together had just been seen as one pitstop among many during his life. There wasn't anything weird about it, had seemed to fit, while at the same time never feeling like it was inevitable. It had been a choice. A kiss. And Sam had thought, then, seeing Dean's shamed face,_ a kiss makes us just as guilty. _And so he had sunk into it, learned the feel of his brother's hands and mouth and cock, and refused any emotion but satisfaction.

That was how he had landed in a thousand different motel room across a dozen different states, how Dean covered him, consumed him, filled him. How he never thought of anything but this, _them, _doing what they were raised to do. He got Dean's comfort again, different form but same result (_safesafesafe)_. How Dean got to save _lives _and Sam got to lose that tensionangerfear that was always so willing to wrap around him.

_I don't wanna die, Sammy. _

That was how he landed _here_, after Dean's year, Lilith, and hellhounds ripping his brother up right before his eyes. How he had failed his big brother when Dean had needed him the most, had asked him--_finally, finally--_to save him. How he had summoned Dean, because Dean was a demon, now, and able to answer those calls. Had contained him, had released him when the thing before him was _so much like his brother. _How he couldn't say no to Dean's arms, or deny that though the length of time here hadn't been long between Dean's absence and his reappearance that the man-demon-whatever who came back was changed. Not a surprise, really, except it kind of was.

But he had Dean back, even black-eyed, cooler, more demanding. Had him back even if Sam sometiimes couldn't look at him when they fucked because the hands and mouth were _different_. Had him back and hunting, even if sometimes when they left a place there was one more missing persons around that area than when they arrived.

Because after Jess, he had regretted her death in the face of the life he had shared with her. After some time, he had regretted knowing her, bringing that down on her just by being _him. _In countless places at countless times he had regretted. But he never had to regret Dean. And that's enough, that's what keeps him wrapped tight in unyielding arms at night, and willing to turn a blind eye to the news that the _girlguymotherfather _they had interviewed turned up missing after they had solved the case.

He never had to regret Dean. Above all, _everyhting, _he remembers that.


End file.
